15. Caspyn
Chapter 15
The pull nearly dragged me through winding alleys into unfamiliar streets. The longer I followed it, the stronger that webbing tingled over my skin, sending me stumbling alongside grime covered walls that grew dirtier with each step. The poor slunk into shadows, gaunt faces and frail hands pulling tattered blankets tighter, eyes wide and haunted as they watched me walk by them as though I was a wraith from another world.
I didn’t stop moving, my cloak flowing behind me as I kept my hand on the hilt of my blade, those tendrils of warning becoming like a vice. Each of those glittering strands tightened with each step, the pull from them becoming near desperate, as though if I didn’t move fast enough I would lose them.
I turned one corner, then another, squeezing through tight alleys and wide yards, only freezing once when I swore I heard the scrape of a sword against leather behind me. There was nothing there but shadows, the violent pull of all those threads yanking me forward and keeping me from investigating further.
Not that it mattered, nothing was there but an old drunk anyways.
Answering in kind, I picked up my pace, weaving through streets and dodging puddles of excrement before the winding alley I had been racing down came to an end; a scratched, stained, and chipped door rising up before me.
By the Goddess. The bastard was in there, I could feel them, maybe a floor up. The sides of the building that closed off the alley were too slick with grime for me to scale without too much noise, which meant the door was the only option. Not being familiar enough with the city, even I knew I could be walking into a trap.
I took two steps back, the sound of whimpering and rustling meeting me as I moved too close to a beggar that was still trying to move into the wall in an effort to get away from me.
“What’s behind there,” I growled, pointing a black gloved finger at the door. The poor woman looked up at me with skin streaked with dirt, eyes wide and blood shot as she tried again to move into the wall.
I must look like death had come to claim her with the look she was giving me. Perhaps I was.
“Here. For five coins,” I said, fishing them out and throwing them on the ground before her. “Tell me what’s behind that door. Is it a home? A shop?”
Her eyes darted between coins and my face before she darted forward, trying to swipe up the glinting pieces of gold before my foot and cape swept forward, stopping her.
“Answer first.”
“A flop. ‘Tis a flop.” She made for the coins again, and this time I moved back, letting her snatch them before she scuttled away and left me to stare at the door again.
A flop. An abandoned home where those addled with drugs or spirits would find themselves lost for days to work off the dosage.
What in the world was a Fae doing in there? Especially a Fae strong enough to pull me to this door.
Every other time I had found the beasts in a city or town it was in some fine inn, surrounded by merchants in an attempt to blend in with those fine silken clothes they always wore.
But here?
The alley was empty and silent now as I pushed the door open, the hinges eerily silent as I stepped into a space fouler than the alley I had come from. The woman was right, it was a flop. People lay everywhere as they drowned in a world of vices, lust, and greed. The smell of unwashed bodies and excrement was as permeating as the dark as I made my way through the mass of bodies, barely able to inhale now with the pressure in my chest and arms.
The Fae was close.
Oddly, none of the stairs made a sound as I began my ascent, still keeping my hand on the hilt of my blade. Even with the subtle groans and moans of the mass of people below me, the sound of a sword escaping its sheathe would be too loud for Fae ears. I would be lucky if I could get close before they attacked.
Pulling my magics up as far as I dared, I kept each of them ready as I hit the top steps and froze.
“That way is sealed. They must have known we were using it before.” The voice drifted through a closed door right at the top of the stairs, the sound of quick steps and what could have been paper following right behind.
“What about near the red gate? We need to get out of the city. I don’t care if we have to fight our way out.” Another voice, different from the first, responded as the sound of more steps echoed over to me.
Two. There were two. No wonder the pull was so strong. Without thinking I placed my free hand on the other blade as if they were going to rush out right then.
“We aren’t going to fight our way out,” the first one responded, the sound of feet ceasing. Someone must have been pacing.
“We will if we keep losing safe houses and safe routes like this–”
“We are already in enough trouble as it is. This is what you get for going in there, and for what–”
“Don’t be so dramatic,” a third voice cut off the first, the tone powerful and strong. With only those few words all those coils that were entangled through me gave a strong pull.
Three. There were three Fae in there. Not just that, three powerful Fae.
I had never felt a different strength in the pulls before, even when I had been hunting more than one. But there was something about these Fae, or rather that last one, that was different. It wasn’t only in the way the twists of power that led me to him were reacting to his voice. It was in his voice, there was something powerful there. Something ancient and commanding, something that caused the other two to back down.
“I was given a chance to enter the Runturin and I took advantage of it. No one even noticed an extra guard following the wedding procession past the gates.” He chuckled, the other two joining in with a low sound that only seemed partially amused. Using the masking of the noise, I stepped onto the landing, taking the last few steps toward the door that was housing the voices.
It was no wonder I could hear them so clearly, the slats that made the door were old and poorly constructed, huge gaps were left between the warped and cracked wood revealing a table with a lantern and what looked like a map on the surface. Three figures stood on either side of them, most of their bodies too far apart to be seen through the door. I didn’t dare move. If I got too close they would see me through the door, or worse they would hear me. I was frozen to the spot, staring at the map as they did, as they circled around it.
“They didn’t notice that the guard became some unnamed royal from a far away kingdom?” The second voice answered with a laugh.
“I still can’t believe you left that woman a letter.” The first voice, what I could now see was a Fae with a blue tunic, said, stepping around the map so I could see him better. Out of the three, he was the only one with short hair, the shaggy crop more brown than the stark blonde of his other companions. Perhaps it was the brown hair, but there was something familiar about him. As though I had seen him somewhere.
“I needed her to know that I was there,” the powerful Fae was still laughing, but the first, the one with brown hair, wasn't.
“It puts things in danger, Vaelar.” He leaned over the table, facing this Vaelar with a snarl. He was furious, but that wasn’t what I was staring at. The brown haired man’s ears were round, his teeth held little more of a point than my own. He wasn’t Fae at all.
“Calm, Theadore. Everything will work out.” Vaelar was strutting around the table now, his dark tunic and breeches glinting the candlelight as though they were made of silk, they probably were. I could even make out the hint of a gold chain round his neck.
“How?” The first man snarled, the second one had retreated from the conversation, his focus only on the map now.
“I saw the princess.” Both of the others started at that, their eyes going wide. I used the flurry of questions that came after that little proclamation to mask another step forward and out of sight of the slats in the door.
“Where? Why didn’t you tell us before? Was she by the queen?”
“Are the rumors true? Will she be of use to us?”
“Calm, calm,” Vaelar put his hands up, the motion as obscured by the door as he was. I could only make out his back. “She is where we heard she would be. I did not make contact, hence the note. My hope is that word will reach her and she will be ready for us. I was, however, able to speak with Elara.”
They all stiffened, I along with them, my fingers tightening around my blade as the heat of my fire thrummed and burned along my skin in preparation.
“Is she…?” The Fae and the man exchanged a look as the haughty blonde Vaelar continued to strut around the table, his face always turned away from me. I saw little more than the point of his ears through his long blonde hair, long slender fingers resting on the grip of a rapier.
“She has magic,” Vaelar said the word in a whisper, the other two hanging over the table. I barely stopped myself from taking a step forward.
Magic. Elara had magic. I wasn’t surprised seeing as all Requisites had magic, but there was something about the way he said the words. As though she held the magic all on her own, even without a Catalyst.
Everyone in the Realm had been told she was useless. Magicless. I had known she would have magic when she faced the queen, but that was magic with her odd Catalyst that the stories said was addled.
But he spoke as though she had magic on her own, magic without a Catalyst. This man… no this Fae…
Fae.
The world seemed to stop. A Fae had seen the princess. A Fae knew she had magic.
The dirty, monstrous Fae who had spent centuries enslaving us, who would form the queen’s army and kill the Catalyst. Kill children. Kill my sister.
Just as I would kill him.
“Can we use it?” The second Fae said, Vaelar continuing to circle the table. “Can we take her?”
“Yes, everything is moving as I have planned,” Vaelar said, his steps slowing as he moved to the front of the table, to the head of the map I now recognized as a layout of the Runturin as it was now, after the queen had made her ‘improvements’. Even what little I could make out from where I stood, it was nothing like how I had known it.
Not only had he gone into the Runturin, but they had clearly been planning to go in for some time. Planning to take the princess.
“Luckily, they will both be leaving when the wedding party departs on the pilgrimage to that blasted graveyard in a few days. We can use it to get out of the city, and then to get them out. But we will need to hurry. I removed the lock on the princess, so things might be becoming a bit chaotic for her right about now.”
“Would it be worth it to kill her then too?” the man asked, his fingers picking at a corner of the map.
“Not yet,” Vaelar said, shaking his head as he stared at the map. “We don’t have the strength yet. Besides, we have a bigger problem.”
He lifted his head then, all of that buzzing binding energy that had brought me there, that still wound around me turning into an inferno as he stepped forward. The door opened without me even touching it and I was dragged into the room with a wave of Vaelar’s hand.
It was then that he looked up, it was then that I peered into a face that haunted my dreams. Sallow skin, defined features, pointed ears. Even without the scar that ran right down the side of his face I knew who he was. It didn’t matter that his eyes were blue instead of the black I had seen them as in the Qit. It didn’t matter that he smiled as though he was glad to see me rather than with the malice and death I had seen the first time.
None of it mattered, because it was him, the man who had rushed into my home that day. Who had destroyed everything. Who had killed Lily.
It was him, and I was going to kill him.
Even though I couldn’t breathe beyond those coils of heat and light that were everywhere now, I still drew my blades.
His smirk was different from the twisted demonic one I had seen before. I barely saw the changes, barely cared as he spoke.
“The Fae killer has found us.”
I lunged at him before he had finished talking.